Over Population

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Humans are now the most numerous mammal on the planet. There are more humans than rats
or mice. Humans have a huge ecological footprint, magnified by their technology.
Dr. David Suzuki(1936-03-24 age:81)

You cannot sustain population growth and / or growth in the rates of consumption of
resources.
~ Dr. Albert A. Bartlett(1923-03-21 age:94)

Introduction

world population over the last 25,000 years

world population over the last 25,000 years

Nearly all global problems are made worse by overpopulation.

We have wars fighting over scarce resources and territory.

We destroy the habitat of every other species, pushing them to extinction. In India
alone the population increases by 20 million every year. These people have to live and
farm somewhere. The increase won’t stop until all the wildlands are gone. Which
do we really need more of on earth? humans or the other species?

Dealing with the pollution of our industries and fecal waste is compounded by
overpopulation.

Plagues thrive in overcrowded conditions.

We are rapidly depleting our non-renewable energy reserves. Every person in the
developed world consumes 40 times as much as in the
developing world. As the huge populations of the developing world demand the fruits of
development the energy and resource needs will soar.

Yet we refuse to take any sort of action to limit our populations even though our
species has hit the planet like a plague of tent caterpillars. We consider ourselves a
rational species, but we foolishly overbreed in a race to turn our paradise of earth to a
hell. We have no more sense than tent caterpillars, We are as much a slave to our gonads
as any insect.

World Population

Applet failed to run. No Java 1.8 or later plug-in found.

The population clock above may differ from others since this one is based on US Census
data and others may be based on UN (United Nations)
data. UN data gives higher
population estimates. You are free to include this clock on your own website.

There have never been more people on Earth. There have never been more cows on Earth,
nor pigs, nor chickens. We are using more pesticides today than at any other time in
history and we are losing a greater percentage of the crops. At the same time, there
has never been less clean water on Earth. There has never been less available topsoil,
nor fewer fish, nor fewer mature trees. There has never been less cause for optimism
for the future of the human race. Our natural resources are disappearing at an
unbelievable rate and our so-called leaders offer only cosmetic solutions. The
Earth’s population calls for more of everything while the Earth demands time to
recover from years of abuse.
~ Howard Lyman(1938-09-17 age:79)

World Population Growth

You can see from this graph of world population growth the incredible extra burden we
are putting on the earth’s carrying capacity, especially in Asia and the Pacific.

The growth in population is very much bound up with poverty and in turn poverty
plunders the earth. When human groups are dying of hunger, they eat everything: grass,
insects, everything. They cut down the trees, they leave the land dry and bare. All
other concerns vanish. That’s why in the next thirty years the problems we call
environmental will be the hardest that humanity has to
face.
~ Tenzin Gyatso(1935-07-06 age:82)
the fourteenth Dalai Lama

Sustainable Population

How big a population can the earth
sustain? If everyone consumed like Americans, we would need three entire planets to
support them. Experts believe that if we reduced consumption, we might be able to sustain
0.5 to 3 billion people.

The Habit of Overpopulating

Most animals don’t need to concern themselves with overpopulation. Predators
take care of the problem. For
predators, starvation handles it. On average only two offspring survive to adulthood,
even when an animal has millions of young. Yet we humans have developed technology to
strip the land bare and pile layer upon layer of humanity, protected by vaccines. No
matter how densely we pack ourselves in, we still strive for ever higher populations out
of an ancient biological imperative. It shows up in our outdated religious beliefs. They
still push for maximal fecundity even though such fecundity is no longer appropriate.
People also have children for status reasons. They also have children to provide for them
in their old age. Social institutions refuse to adjust to the new reality of
overpopulation.

Single cell organisms normally do all they can to split and become two. However, in
multi-celled organisms this urge has to be curtailed. When cells refuse to behave and
consider the life of the organism as a whole, they reproduce at will and become a
cancer. Similarly in civilisations, there are some groups that refuse to curb their
reproduction. Christians and Muslims who resist birth control are the analog of cancer on
the body politic.

During the Gadafi ouster, a man from Libya mentioned that he had 70 cousins, a number of whom he had never seen. To avoid a population
explosion, you must not have more than 4 first cousins.
~ Roedy(1948-02-04 age:70)

The American Excuse

Americans tell me that it is not their fault the
world is overpopulated. The fault lies in Asia and Africa where people have large
families. Yet each American consumes 11 times the resources of
someone living in Asia or Africa. Americans import these resources from all over the
planet. Every American kid counts as 11 kids in terms of burden on the planetary
ecosystem. Not only do Americans need to reverse their population growth, they must
reduce their ecological footprint. Each American woman has about 2.07 children,
equivalent to a family of 23 children in terms of drain on the ecosystem.

Action

If your parents were environmentally irresponsible and had more than two children, you
and your siblings can compensate to correct the mini population explosion by limiting
yourself to four children among you.
~ Roedy(1948-02-04 age:70)

We must change the archaic attitudes towards breeding. It must become
socially unacceptable. This is quite a revolution in our thinking. The urge to breed is
so strong it will prevail against almost any social pressure. There is no worry about
going too far. If we do, we can adjust.

For example here are some approaches that have been tried, not all of which are very
palatable:

We need massive research on birth control that is cheap to administer that works by
default. Both parties should need to do something active, (other than have sex), to
allow a pregnancy, e.g. take a pill.

We must provide programs to ensure people are cared for in old age whether or not
they have children.

We must get rid of all government subsidies that encourage people to have
children.

We should provide large cash incentives for vasectomies and tubal ligations.

We need new technology to attempt to support the huge populations with sustainable
clean energy and sustainable agriculture.

We must start making rude jokes about people who have children. We must call them
breeders or other nastier epithets.

We must discourage religions that encourage overpopulation by taking away their tax
breaks.

We must encourage people to have homosexual relationships wherever possible.

We should encourage people to keep small pets instead of children.

We should continue the Bush approach to AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome),
namely actively encouraging
it. We should create some new plagues as well, ones better aimed at those who have
large numbers of children.

We should foment wars to help kill off the young men.

We should not intervene when crazed dictators such as Hitler, Idi Amin and Pol Pot
decimate their populations.

We should relax the taboos against inter-species sex.

Not all these approaches are equally palatable. Even I don’t endorse them all.
However, if we don’t get serious about the more palatable ones, we will be forced
to use the less palatable ones instead. People sometimes write me furious that I would
advocate such strange measures. I don’t. I merely list what has been tried or
suggested.

The first homo sapiens walked the earth 200,000 years
ago.

It took until 1804 for the global population to reach
1 billion.

123 years later in 1927, it
reached 2 billion.

33 years later in 1960, it
reached 3 billion.

14 years later in 1974 it
reached 4 billion.

13 years later in 1987 it
reached 5 billion.

12 years later in 1999 it
reached 6 billion.

Today it reached 7 billion.

In 2025 it is projected to hit 12 billion.

You can see the problem, called exponential growth. The more people there are, the
more people there are having babies and the faster the population grows. The only
remotely palatable solution is to lower the birth rate. Each family must have fewer
than two children.

~ Roedy(1948-02-04 age:70)

The USA

There are three ways to approach the population problem:

reduce the birth rate.

increase the death rate.

increase the efficiency with which you can sustain a population with limited
resources.

Depopulation should be the highest priority of foreign policy towards the third world,
because the US economy will require large and increasing amounts of minerals from
abroad, especially from less developed countries.
~ Henry Kissinger(1923-05-27 age:94)

America has focused almost exclusively on increasing the death rate. This is a
startling thing to say, but look at her actions, not George W. Bush’s fine
speeches.

She interfered with condom education in Africa, which does work and forced
religious-based abstinence education which has been proven to make the
AIDS
epidemic worse.

America blocked African countries from making and distributing
AIDS
drugs to stop the epidemic. Preserving patents was more important than preserving
lives.

America is the stingiest country of all the western nations in terms of foreign
aid. Even the greedy Saudis are 50 times as generous. It is ironic two of the richest countries in the
world are also the stingiest. Canada is the second stingiest western country giving
2.8 times as generously as the USA as a percentage of
GNI (Gross National Income). What makes
America’s stinginess even more shameful, is American gives the 1/3 her foreign
aid to Israel who spends it on their military to oppress her Palestinian citizens.
Israel is a relatively prosperous nation. There are many countries more deserving of
help than Israel.

47% of the planet’s military spending (i.e. spending on ways to kill people)
is done by America. Americans kill more people than all other nations combined.
Ostensibly this spending is to protect Americans and to improve the quality of American
life. However, it accomplishes this by killing people who live in countries that
possess the natural resources America wants, such as Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and
Zaire.

America backs corrupt political regimes who oppress their people in return for
access to natural resources. Let us not forget that it was America who originally
helped Saddam, Marcos and Pinochet into power.

American sponsored immunization programs in Africa deliberately reused needles
without sterilisation. This spread all manner of diseases including
AIDS.

Americans are the most deliberately wasteful group of people on the planet when it
comes to resources. There whole culture and status system is built on consumption and
waste. Canada is almost as bad.

America encourages ever higher birthrates at home and abroad by discouraging family
planning, contraceptives, condoms and abortion.

America encourages ever higher birthrates by destroying economic stability in other
countries exploiting workers and destroying unions. Impoverished people have no social
security other than a large family.

Sex Selection

In some societies, parents prefer to have male children. It might be wise not to
interfere. Why?

They will have fewer children overall, e.g. people who keep having children until
they get a boy, can get one on the first try.

With fewer female babies, there will be fewer mothers and fewer babies in future.
The excess boys will not be reproducing.

As females get rarer, it is possible their status will rise, as it did in the Gold
Rush days. This may be what it takes so shake up some rigid patriarchal societies.

It is hard enough to get people to control their rabbit instincts. Let us not
interfere with sex selection as a means of population control that does not need a hard
sell.

The Good News

Ever since 1968, when the
United Nations Population Division predicted that the world population, now 6.6 billion
(2006), would grow to at least 12 billion by 2050, the agency has regularly revised its estimates downward. Now it
expects population to plateau at nine billion. That is still 2.4 times higher than the goal of 2 billion.

I have severe doubts that we can support even two billion if they all live like
citizens of the U.S. The world can support a lot more vegetarian saints than
Hummer-driving idiots.
~ Paul Ehrlich(1932-05-29 age:85)

Many western countries have achieved a negative population growth if you discount
immigration.

Even in North Africa, regarded as the great exception to the shrinking population
trend, birthrates have dropped somewhat. Egypt’s, for example, went from 5.4 births
per woman in 1970 to 3.6 in 1999.

If all you do is teach people how to use birth control and provide women with access
to it, you don’t need any coercion. In Africa people still have large families, but
that is because there is no old age security other than children. When that security is
provided, family size automatically shrinks because birth control frees women to other
things besides raise babies.

The Bad News

Can you think of any problem, in any area of human endeavor, on any scale, from
microscopic to global, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way aided,
assisted, or advanced by further increases in population, locally, nationally, or
globally?
~ Dr. Albert A. Bartlett(1923-03-21 age:94)

Corporations have magnified the power of human greed to widen the wealth
gap. They have encouraged conspicuous consumption. Religions are still goading their
adherents to breed faster than any other sect. At the same time the power of the earth to
sustain is waning through the end of oil (upon which the green revolution is based), the
erosion of soil, pesticide and chemical contamination of soil and water, urban sprawl
into the prime farm land and global warming which is destabilising climate and rain.

Too many things have to go right for us to get out of this one without massive pain.
It is just not going to happen. Most of the world are like pigs in a trough trampling the
environment not thinking about anything other than their immediate gratification. All we
can do is try to make it not quite so awful, to preserve at least a few acres from the
ravening caterpillars that humanity have become, so that at least there will be islands
of life to reseed the earth after the human plague has passed. We humans are the biggest
extinction event in the history of the planet, wiping out even more species than the
asteroid that hit earth and ended the age of the dinosaurs. Being proud of being human is
like being proud of being an Ebola virus.

Earth’s Carrying Capacity

In 1961
the earth had 3 billion people. They were using 0.5 of the sustainable resources of
earth.

In 1986 the earth had 5 billion people. They were using all
of the sustainable resources.

Ever since we have been running that might be called an environmental deficit budget
which is only sustained by plundering our capital base.

By that I mean:

overexploiting fisheries.

overgrazing to the point of desertification.

destroying forests.

polluting the waters and atmosphere, including greenhouse gases.

You have seen the results of Bush deficit budgets. The same sort of thing is
happening on a planetary basis.

At the rate we are going, we would need 2 whole planets to sustain our rapacious
appetites in 2050. Something has obviously got to give —
most pleasantly our wasteful use of energy.

Club of Rome

A group of scientists known as the Club of Rome back
in the 1970s attempted to predict when population would
outstrip resources. They predicted serious problems much too soon. The data they were
given about energy and mineral resources seriously underestimated the untapped wealth of
the earth. They were basically right, but got the timing wrong. In contrast, today we
know exactly how many pollutants of each kind are being released into the atmosphere with
great precision. Further because of extraordinary improvements in computers, the
mathematical predictions are now much more accurate. People afraid to look at the serious
problems facing humanity like to bury their heads in the sand by telling themselves
scientists are always wrong because the Club of Rome’s timing was off. Of course
they trust scientists in nearly ever other instance, from pharmaceuticals to aeronautics.

Infant Mortality Rate

The usual measure of a country’s health care
system is the IMR (Infant Mortality Rate).
the number of infant deaths per 1000 births. There are some surprises taken from this
table compiled by the CIA.
Countries near the top of the list have the best healthcare systems. Even though the USA
spends more on health care than any other country it has the worst
IMR of any first
world country. Even third world Cuba beats it. Canada spends about 1/3 per capita of
what the USA does on health care, yet Canada ranks 24 to the
USA’s 51.

Canada dropped from rank 23 to 43.
The USA dropped from rank 43 to 51.

Americans are paying more than anyone else in the world and receiving third world
quality health care. Clearly they are being ripped off, but Americans are too proud to
admit it. They live under the delusion their health care must be the best in the world
simply because it is the most expensive and has the most TV ads touting it.

Countries of the world ranked by IMR
Infant
Mortality Rate in 2012

Infant Mortality Rates 2012

Rank

Country

IMR

Notes

1

Monaco

1.80

best in the world

2

Japan

2.21

3

Bermuda

2.47

4

Singapore

2.65

5

Sweden

2.74

So much for the canard that socialised medicine does not work.

6

Hong Kong

2.90

Not quite what you would expect.

7

Macau

3.17

8

Iceland

3.18

9

Italy

3.36

10

Spain

3.37

11

Finland

3.40

12

France

3.40

13

Anguilla

3.44

14

Norway

3.50

15

Germany

3.51

16

Guernsey

3.52

17

Malta

3.65

18

Belarus

3.70

19

Czech Republic

3.70

20

Netherlands

3.73

21

Andorra

3.76

22

Ireland

3.81

23

Switzerland

3.90

24

Jersey

3.94

25

Israel

4.07

26

Korea, South

4.08

27

Slovenia

4.12

28

Denmark

4.19

29

Austria

4.26

30

Isle of Man

4.27

31

Belgium

4.28

32

Liechtenstein

4.39

33

Luxembourg

4.39

34

European Union

4.49

35

Australia

4.55

36

United Kingdom

4.56

37

Portugal

4.60

38

Taiwan

4.60

39

Wallis and Futuna

4.61

40

San Marino

4.65

41

New Zealand

4.72

42

Cuba

4.83

43

Canada

4.85

Rose from 4.69 under the Conservative Harper
government.

44

French Polynesia

4.88

45

Greece

4.92

46

Hungary

5.24

47

New Caledonia

5.62

48

Guam

5.70

49

Northern Mariana Islands

5.70

50

Faroe Islands

5.94

51

United States

6.00

52

Croatia

6.06

53

Bosnia and Herzegovina

6.10

54

Lithuania

6.18

55

Serbia

6.40

56

Poland

6.42

57

Slovakia

6.47

58

Cayman Islands

6.49

59

Gibraltar

6.55

60

Qatar

6.81

61

Estonia

6.94

62

Virgin Islands

7.10

63

Saint Pierre and Miquelon

7.29

64

Russia

7.30

65

Chile

7.40

66

Kuwait

7.87

67

Puerto Rico

8.10

68

Latvia

8.24

69

Macedonia

8.32

70

Ukraine

8.38

71

Nauru

8.51

72

Cyprus

9.05

73

Costa Rica

9.20

74

American Samoa

9.40

75

Saint Kitts and Nevis

9.43

76

Uruguay

9.44

77

Sri Lanka

9.47

78

Greenland

9.83

79

Bahrain

10.20

80

Botswana

10.49

81

Argentina

10.52

82

Fiji

10.73

83

Romania

10.73

84

Grenada

11.12

85

Brunei

11.15

86

Mauritius

11.20

87

Panama

11.32

88

Seychelles

11.35

89

United Arab Emirates

11.59

90

Barbados

11.63

91

Turks and Caicos Islands

11.63

92

Palau

12.10

93

Dominica

12.38

94

Saint Lucia

12.39

95

Aruba

12.51

96

Libya

12.70

97

Bahamas, The

13.09

98

Tonga

13.21

99

Moldova

13.65

100

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

13.86

101

Albania

14.12

102

Antigua and Barbuda

14.17

103

Jamaica

14.30

104

British Virgin Islands

14.43

105

West Bank

14.47

106

Malaysia

14.57

107

Georgia

14.68

108

Montserrat

14.69

109

Oman

14.95

110

Syria

15.12

111

Cook Islands

15.30

112

Lebanon

15.32

113

Saudi Arabia

15.61

114

China

15.62

115

Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha

15.80

116

Jordan

15.83

117

Thailand

15.90

118

Colombia

15.92

119

Bulgaria

16.13

120

Gaza Strip

16.55

121

Mexico

16.77

122

Solomon Islands

17.25

123

Vanuatu

17.90

124

Armenia

18.21

125

Philippines

18.75

126

Ecuador

19.06

127

El Salvador

19.66

128

Honduras

19.85

129

Venezuela

20.18

130

Viet Nam

20.24

131

Brazil

20.50

132

Uzbekistan

21.20

133

Dominican Republic

21.30

134

Belize

21.37

135

Peru

21.50

136

Samoa

21.85

137

Nicaragua

21.86

138

Paraguay

22.24

139

Marshall Islands

22.93

140

Kazakhstan

23.06

141

Turkey

23.07

142

Algeria

23.40

143

Micronesia, Federated States of

23.51

144

Egypt

24.23

145

Tunisia

24.98

146

Guatemala

25.16

147

Cape Verde

26.02

148

Korea, North

26.21

149

Maldives

26.46

150

Morocco

26.49

151

Trinidad and Tobago

26.73

152

Indonesia

27.00

153

Zimbabwe

28.23

154

Azerbaijan

28.76

155

Suriname

28.94

156

Kyrgyzstan

30.80

157

Tuvalu

33.55

158

Guyana

35.59

159

Mongolia

36.00

160

Tajikistan

37.33

161

Kiribati

37.68

162

Iraq

40.25

Under American occupation

163

Eritrea

40.34

164

Turkmenistan

40.89

165

Ghana

40.90

166

Bolivia

40.94

167

Iran

41.11

168

Timor-Leste

41.40

169

Papua New Guinea

42.05

170

Bhutan

42.17

171

South Africa

42.67

172

Nepal

43.13

173

Kenya

43.61

174

Namibia

45.61

175

India

46.07

176

Tanzania

46.50

177

Madagascar

47.40

178

Burma

47.74

179

Bangladesh

48.99

180

Gabon

49.00

181

Togo

49.87

182

Sao Tome and Principe

51.83

183

Haiti

52.44

184

Djibouti

53.31

185

Lesotho

53.44

186

Yemen

53.50

187

Cambodia

54.08

188

Senegal

55.16

189

Sudan

55.60

190

Laos

57.77

191

Mauritania

58.93

192

Western Sahara

58.96

193

Guinea

59.04

194

Swaziland

59.57

195

Cameroon

59.70

196

Benin

60.03

197

Burundi

60.32

198

Ethiopia

60.90

199

Pakistan

61.27

200

Rwanda

62.51

201

Cote d'Ivoire

63.20

202

Uganda

64.20

203

Comoros

68.97

204

Gambia, The

69.58

205

Zambia

70.60

206

South Sudan

71.80

207

Liberia

72.71

208

Congo, Republic of the

74.22

209

Nigeria

74.36

210

Equatorial Guinea

75.18

211

Congo, Democratic Republic of the

76.63

212

Sierra Leone

76.64

213

Mozambique

76.85

214

Malawi

79.02

215

Burkina Faso

79.84

216

Angola

83.53

217

Niger

89.70

218

Chad

93.61

219

Guinea-Bissau

94.40

220

Central African Republic

97.17

221

Somalia

103.72

222

Mali

108.70

223

Afghanistan

121.63

Under American occupation. Worst in the world.

Ironically, where IMR is lowest, population growth is slowest, so it pays to
improve infant mortality to reduce population.

Think of the earth as a living organism that is being attacked by billions of bacteria
whose numbers double every forty years. Either the host dies, or the virus dies, or
both die.
~ Gore Vidal(1925-10-032012-07-30 age:86)
on overpopulation.

Solutions

Scientists have discovered four solutions to overpopulation:

Education of girls.

Women’s equality and civil rights so they are not bullied into
pregnancy.

Women having access to means to limit fertility.

Higher child survival rates. This sounds paradoxical, but with higher survival
rates people have much smaller families.

Books

Book referral for The Coming Population Crash: and Our Planet’s Surprising Future

The title is a bit of a misnomer. The author predicts population will top out at about 8 billion in 2040 and then gradually drop. The women of all the countries of the world are voluntarily having fewer babies so they can join the work force. Italy has already dropped its birth rate to 1.1, less than needed to sustain. The earth’s population is aging. This is a good thing since older people tend to be more willing to make the sacrifices needed for a green planet and, of course, they don’t have more babies.

The most important thing about this book is that it was published in 1948, 14 years before Rachael Carson and Silent Spring. It focuses on over population, soil erosion, invasive species, massive water control projects and the rapacious practices of corporations. These problems were apparent even back then and we did almost nothing about them. There is also a paperback version of this book, but it does not have an ISBN.